CORRESPONDENCE.
A SCAMPER AT EASTER.
[To TEM EDITOR OF TRIG "SPECTATOR...] SIR,--No one can dislike more than I the habit which has become so common of late years amongst us—thanks, or rather no thanks, to Mr. Gladstone—of running-down our own English wags of dealing with all creation, from. Irishmen to black-beetles. I believe, on the contrary, that on the whole there is not, nor ever was, a nation that kept a more active conscience, or tried more honestly to do the right thing all round according to its lights. Nevertheless, I am bound to admit that our methods don't always succeed, as, for instance, with our treatment of our "submerged tenth," if that is the accepted name for the section of our people which Mr. C. Booth, in his excellent "Life and Labour in London," places in his A and B classes (and which, by-the-way, are only 8-2,. and not 10 per cent.), or with our sea-gulls. Some years ago, I called your readers' attention to the rapid demoralisation of these beautiful birds at one of our Northern watering- places ; bow they just floated past the pier-heads hour after hour, waiting for the doles which the holiday folk and their children brought down for them in paper-bags. Our sea-going gulls, I regret to note, are now similarly affected. At any rate, some forty of them diligently followed the steamer in which I sailed for my Easter holiday, from the Liverpool docks till we dropped our pilot and turned due south off Holyhead. By that time our last meal had been eaten and the remains cast into the sea. The gulls seemed to be quite aware of this ; and we left them squabbling over the last scraps of fish and potatoes, or loafing slowly back to Liverpool. Thirty-six hours later we entered the Garonne, and steamed sixty miles up it to Bordeaux. For all that distance there were plenty of French gulls on the water or in the air, but, so far from following us, not one of them seemed to take the least notice of us, but all went on quietly with their fishing or courting; and yet our cook's mate must have thrown out as much broken victuals after breakfast in the Garonne as he did after lun- cheon or dinner on the Welsh coast. It cannot be because the French gulls are Republicans, for the Republic has, if any- thing, increased the national appetite for unearned loaves and fishes. It is certainly very odd; but, anyhow, I hope our gulls will not take to more self-respecting ways of life, for it is a real treat to watch them in the ship's wake, without effort, often without perceptible motion of the wings, keeping up the fourteen knots an hour. The captain and I fraternised over the gulls, whom he loves, and will not allow to be shot at from his ship. "I'll shoot, whether you like it or not," insisted a sporting gent, on a recent voyage. "If you do, I'll put you in irons," retorted the captain; whereupon the sporting gent collapsed,—a pity, I think, for an action for false imprisonment would have been interesting under the circumstances. I fancy the captain is right, but must look up the law after Easter.
I am surprised that this route is not more popular with the increasing numbers of our people who like a short run to the South of France in our hard spring weather, You can get- by this way to Bordeaux quicker than you can by Dover or Folkestone from any place north of Trent, unless you travel day and night, and sleep on the trains, and for about half the money. The packets are cargo-boats, but with excellent cabins and sleeping accommodation for twelve or fourteen passengers, including as good a bath as on a Cunard or White Star liner. And yet I was the only passenger last week. There can scarcely be a more interesting short voyage for any one who is a decent sailor; but I suppose the fourteen or sixteen hours " in the Bay of Biscay, oh !" scares people. As far as my experience goes, the Atlantic roars like a sucking-dove in the Channel and the Bay at Easter-time. There was not wind enough to dimple the ocean-surface, and until we passed Milford Haven, no perceptible motion on the ship. Then, as we crossed the opening of the Bristol Channel, she began to roll,—quite unaccountably as it seemed at first ; but on watching carefully, one became aware that, though the surface was motionless, the great deep beneath was heaving with long pulsations from the West, which lifted us in regular cadence every thirty or forty seconds. I have often crossed the Atlantic, but never seen the like, as always before there has been a ripple on the calmest day, which gave the effect, at any rate, of surface-motion. The best idea I can give of it is, if on a long stretch of our South Downs the successive turf-slopes took to rising and falling perpendicularly every minute. The Captain said there must have been wild weather out West, and these were the rollers. It was a grand sight to watch the great heave pass on till it reached the Land's End, and ran up the cliffs there. We passed near enough to see the mining-works, close to the level of high-tide, and the villages on the cliff-tops above, or clinging on to the slopes wherever these were not too precipitous. One can realise what manner of men and sailors this Far West has bred of old, and, I hope, still breeds. I pity the Englishman whose pulse does not quicken as he sails by the Land's-End, and can see with a glass some of the small harbours out of which Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins sailed, and drew the crews that followed and fought the Armada right away to the Straits of Dover.
As the Land's-End light receded, we became aware of another light away some twenty miles to the south-west. It is on ' a rock not fifty yards across, the Captain says, at high-tide, and often unapproachable for weeks together,—" The Hawk," by name, on which are kept four lighthouse-men, who spend there alternate months, weather permitting. I was glad to hear that there are four at a time, as the sight of " The Hawk " brought vividly to my mind the gruesome story of fifty years back, when there were only two men, who were known not to be good friends. One died, and his companion had to wait with the dead body for weeks before his relief came.
I noticed, before we were two hours out, that there was something unusually smart about the crew, quite what one would look for on the Umbria' or Germanic,' but scarcely on a 700-tons cargo-boat plying to Bordeaux. Several of the young hands were fine British tars, with the splendid throats and great muscular hands and wrists which stand out so well from the blue woollen jerseys ; but the one who struck me most was the ship's carpenter, a grey, weather-beaten old salt, who was going round quietly, but all the time with his broad- headed hammer, setting little things straight, helping to straighten the tarpaulins over the hatches and deck-cargo, and sounding the well. I caught him now and then for a few words, as he passed my deck-chair, and got the clue. Most of the crew were Naval Reserve men, and followed the captain, a lieutenant in the R.N.R., who could fly the blue- ensign in foreign ports, which they liked. Besides, he was a skipper who cared for his men, looked after their mess and berths, and never wanted to make anything out of them ; charged them only is. a pound for their baecy, the price at which he could get it out of bond, while most skippers charged 2s. 6d., the shop price. He had come to this boat while his big ship was laid up in dock, to oblige the owners, so they had followed him. Besides, he never put them to any work he wouldn't bear a hand in ; had stood for hours up to his waist last year in the hold when they were bringing five hundred cattle and seven hundred hogs from Canada, running before a heavy gale. The water they shipped was putting out the engine- fires, and the pumps wouldn't work till they had bailed for ten hours. However, they got in all right, and never lost a beast. Of course, I was keen to hear the captain on this subject, and so broached it at his table. Yes, it was quite true ; they had run before a heavy gale from off Newfoundland, and the pumps gave out off the Irish Coast. They got the sludge bailed out enough for all the fires to get to work just about in time, or would have drifted on the rocks and gone all to pieces in a few minutes. Yes, it was about the nastiest piece of work he had ever had to do ; the sludge, for it was only half water, was above his waist, and had quite spoiled his uniform. The deck engineer—a light-haired man, all big bones and muscle, whom he pointed out to me—was in the deepest part of the hold up to his arm-pits, and had worked there for ten hours without coming up ! He was a R.N.R. man, like the old carpenter and most of the rest. The old fellow was one of the staunchest and best followers, probably because he was tired of going aground. He had been aground seventeen times ! for the captain in his last ship, had a way of charging shoals, merely saying " Oh, she'll jump it ! " which she generally declined to do. The captain is a strong Churchman, but shares the prejudice against carrying ministers. "The devil always has a show" when you're carrying a minister. The first time he tried it, he was taking out his own brother, and they were twenty-two days late at Montreal. It was an awful crossing, a gale in their teeth all the way ; most of the ships that started with them had to put back, I suggested that if be hadn't had his brother on board, he mighn't have got over at all ; but he wouldn't see it. Next time, a man fell from the mast-head and was killed, and the next, a man jumped overboard, He would never carry a minister again if he could help it.
One pilot took us out to Holyhead, but it took three French ones to take us up to Bordeaux. The Garonne banks are only picturesque here and there; but the flat banks have their own interest, for do we not see the choicest vineyards of the claret country as we run up ? There was the Chateau Lafitte, and the Chateau Margaux. I suppose one ought, within one's heart, or rather, within one's palate perhaps, "to have felt a stir "— " As tho' one looked upon the sheath Which once had clasped Excalibur."
But I could not tell the difference between Margaux and any decent claret with my eyes shut, so I did not feel any stir, —unless, perhaps, as a patriot, when we passed much the most imposing establishment, and the captain said, " That is ChAteau. Gilbey 1" I looked with silent wonder, for did I not remember years ago when the Gladstone Grocers' Licences Bill was young, and the Christie Minstrels sung scoffingly,— " Ten little niggers going out to dine, One drank Gilbey, and then there were nine," and here was Gilbey with the finest " caves " and the choicest vineyard in the Bordelaise ! Who can measure the competitive• energy of the British business-man ?
I must end as I set out, with the birds. As we neared the mouth of the Garonne, sixteen miles from land the captain said, two little water-wagtails flitted into the rigging. There they rested a few minutes, and then, to my grief, started of out to sea, but again and again came back to the ship. At last a sailor caught one, and the captain secured it and took it to his cabin, but thought it would be sure to die. It was the hen-bird. She did not die, but flitted away cheerfully when he brought her out and let her fly on the quay of Bor- deaux. But I fear she will never find her mate.
VICITUS VIATOR.
Previous page
